alaincopter's dirty brasil-style AP turbo fox build

Since my original thread got deleted when the forum changed, I've decided to make a new one showing everything that has been happening to this car since day one. It is a lot of stuff, so please be patient!

Let me start by saying that I've always wanted to have a nice Voyage, ever since I was a kid. I was born and raised in Brazil so I really grew up around BX platform cars. My first favourite car was my aunt's white Voyage.

Anyways, onto the fox-coloured Fox. This is when I first got it in 2007.

The 87 Trans AM you see beside it eventually got sold to fund the Fox; the grand cherokee was my first vehicle and I still drive it to this day.

At 318,000 km, this Fox appeared to be in good shape... until you looked at the engine bay. Many would say this is not a good candidate for a turbo project; but this car caught my eye and I could really see its potential underneath all the dirt and rust.

I sort of knew what I was getting into. This was a very inexpensive car to begin with and I knew that making it nice would be a neverending story, but I was really set on saving this one, one little thing at the time. First thing to do was to get some new wheels for it. I was always set on following a brazilian OEM+ style with this car so I decided on similar wheels to the Voyage Sport - the BBS 14" basketweaves from the late '80s BMW 325. Pics:

Then right before winter came (bad idea but whatever) I decided to cut the springs.

Ghetto thing to do, but Foxes ride surprisingly well with cut springs.

then the real fun (and lots of work) was about to begin. Took a trip to Brazil in '08 and came back with a turbo kit and some other goodies.
Here's my cousin holding the box with my biagio .48/.50 turbine, outside the Fast Street performance shop in Campinas, São Paulo (those folks are awesome to deal with and very knowledgeable in anything related to adding horsepower to AP engines)

A couple of pics from inside their shop

And then back home with the goodies waiting to be installed.

Last edited by alaincopter; 04-17-2014 at 12:17 AM.
Reason: new picture hosting

Well, you gotta start somewhere. I knew I would have to revisit most of my install to clean everything up and do things right, but I was really eager to get the car back on the road and feel some power/hear that blow-off sound that I decided to leave some things for later (ie do a dirty install) and get the car working quickly. Yes, this involved a "custom exhaust" made mostly of flexpipe!

Luckily I then moved out of student housing, into a house with an actual garage!

I had gone to OSCR with hopes of having Jonathan build me a proper exhaust; unfortunately, he was incredibly busy with preparations and with other people's cars. He did help me a lot by tuning my DPR and giving me a ignition advance/retard diaphragm from an Audi turbo; but then back home something had to be done about my exhaust. So I got myself a pipe bender, got the downpipe welded, ruined many feet of pipe, and eventually got it done.

Last edited by alaincopter; 04-17-2014 at 12:06 AM.
Reason: new picture hosting

Then I did a few more things... replaced the rear drums for wagon-sized ones and cleaned up rust back there, also cleaned up more rust in the engine bay, and got a fuel distributor from a 5cyl Audi, since the car was leaning out in the very top end.

Up until that point the car still had a 4-speed on it. Shortly after having acquired a limited slip differential from Brazil, I got a hold of the first PSA 5-spd tranny I could find and installed it. Turned out that transmission had a bad synchro on 2nd gear.

Turned out being okay, since I had an excuse to install this ceramic clutch that arrived shortly after. The stock clutch had been slipping the whole time since the turbo had gone in.

Last edited by alaincopter; 04-17-2014 at 12:01 AM.
Reason: new picture hosting

Some new and refinished parts... big valve head back from the machine shop, multi-layered steel head gasket (corrado G60), freshened up distributor, manifold cleaned up and flameproof coated, and my turbo next to a K03 for comparison

Last edited by alaincopter; 04-16-2014 at 11:51 PM.
Reason: new picture hosting